W3C - Cash in Simcountry (White Giant)

Cash levels in all worlds are decreasing. More players are exchanging their cash into gold coins and the excessive cash levels diminish.
The cost of financial services is diminishing too and is currently insignificant. As cash levels are reduced even a higher percentage of financial services, is having a very limited effect because most countries have exchanged their cash into gold coins.
There are very few countries in each world paying for financial services. These countries belong to some of the richest players who for some reason, want to keep their cash and not exchange for gold coins.
We assume that they know that one day exchange rates will fall and hope that their cash will be more valuable. This may happen but the cost of financial services may be higher than the exchange rate profit. Exchange rates will not fall for now and may be increased short term. They will only decrease when cash levels have landed to acceptable levels.
The cash levels will continue to fall and financial services percentages will remain or increase, to convince everyone that there is no future in huge cash reserves.

Someone complained recently about the price of a Jeep. It was 4-5 millions! True, this is outrageous. What he forgot to mention, is that many countries buying Jeeps, have 15T in cash.
He compared of course to the price of a military Jeep in the real world. Well, how many countries in the real world do you know who have even 1T in cash? Let alone 15 or 20T.
The price of Jeeps should go down and the cash levels too.
Thousands of gold coins have been given in the past weeks to presidents and CEOs for their cash and more is underway. The number of available gold coins is high and they will of course be able to exchange gold coins into cash whenever they need it. This also happens a lot. We see many transactions on the cash market, both in and out of gold coins.

The fact that cash is exchanged into gold coins is meaningless in terms of cash availability as everyone can exchange back into game money whenever they want to and need cash in the game.

The need for cash, long term, is reduced

In recent months, both the cost for countries and their income decreased. The need for cash in corporations decreased because raw materials are cheaper and the stock of raw materials they hold costs less than before.

The cost however, depends on many parameters. Much of the cost of governments depends on the cost of materials and salaries. Materials cost fluctuates on the market. It can increase temporarily and then decrease again. The long term trend is down.

The cost of the army depends mainly on the cost of ammunition and ammunition price is high.

One of the reasons for the high price of ammunition is that some countries and some large CEOs who have a huge amount of cash, are buying everything on the market and store it. They do this to manipulate the market which is part of the game and they also do so to keep high cash levels, believing that they will be able to sell later and their cash will be more valuable in the future.

This is another reason to reduce cash levels. It is unfair, if a couple of players with very large amounts of cash are able to increase the cost of war for all players in all worlds.

Our recent announcements of weapons quality and the possibility that quality will be reduced in time for ammunition and weapons that are stored for a long time, was immediately followed by some significant sales of weapons and ammunition in 3 of the 5 worlds.

This may be a coincidence and maybe it is not. We just see larger numbers of ammunitions and weapons appearing on the market. This has happened several times before, mainly when the new war engine appeared to require smaller numbers of weapons. Many countries and enterprises dumped many weapons and ammunition on the market.

We are planning some tuning of the weapon industry that may increase production and reduce cost per unit. The corporations that produce these items will have a little more product but at the same total price as before and their profitability will remain unchanged.

We hope that mainly ammunition cost will decline. If it does, the cost of the army and the cost of war will decline too. There was some progress recently but the cost should decline more.

I find difficult to explain this matter for two reasons: because it is absurd and because of it's blatant obvious absurdity.

Words lack to explain what the eyes see.

Has you don't have the audacity to show us the numbers, I will post what I can.

	Cash
	Countries	Enterprises	Sum
KB	3.333.661.348.244.160	2.186.960.673.826.840	5.520.622.022.071.000
FB	800.976.098.718.542	1.788.215.874.945.790	2.589.191.973.664.330
WG	7.930.669.911.102.030	4.381.524.042.265.110	12.312.193.953.367.100
GR	6.619.850.294.091.260	2.072.128.963.778.360	8.691.979.257.869.620
LU	12.319.307.483.627.400	4.283.060.694.298.120	16.602.368.177.925.500
Sum	31.004.465.135.783.300	14.711.890.249.114.200	45.716.355.384.897.600

	Assets
	Countries	Enterprises	Sum
KB	7.082.076.595.437.270	7.648.098.070.424.440	14.730.174.665.861.700
FB	4.260.607.519.129.500	8.709.512.744.171.930	12.970.120.263.301.400
WG	15.486.013.171.116.300	17.464.630.012.563.600	32.950.643.183.679.800
GR	13.468.495.881.803.700	8.104.775.557.078.710	21.573.271.438.882.500
LU	19.975.403.239.790.600	23.092.006.805.611.400	43.067.410.045.402.000
Sum	60.272.596.407.277.400	65.019.023.189.850.000	125.291.619.597.127.000

	Production
	Countries	Enterprises	Sum
KB	131.353.281.785.817	77.296.851.310.000	208.650.133.095.817
FB	140.836.983.164.703	91.923.084.690.000	232.760.067.854.703
WG	272.026.792.402.088	176.106.716.390.000	448.133.508.792.088
GR	202.710.548.856.000	88.915.548.420.000	291.626.097.276.000
LU	381.258.374.746.565	234.950.737.250.000	616.209.111.996.565
Sum	1.128.185.980.955.170	669.192.938.060.000	1.797.378.919.015.170

Cash compose about 60% of the assets of every world. 80% on FB.
Cash reserves are only two game years of the world production. Whereas on FB is only 1 game year.
Every world is tending towards FB.

Indeed I should have added the numbers to make my point.

Cash level should be way lower.
who needs 45.000 trillions.
We started with >45.000T in GR alone.

The complete world economy as we know it is probably less than 500T.

This is an alternative scenario:

A rich country will have an income of 300B to 700B per year and total production of 2 to 3T

The US has a GNP of probably 10T with a population of 300 Millions.

Cash reserves in china are now 1.4T with a population of 1.4 billions.

A country with 60 millions will have maybe 500B in cash. More than Russia with three times the population.

If the country needs more cash , it will exchange 1 of the 500 gold coins it got for the current cash reserves.

It can of course have much more cash but who will ever think of an astronomic amount of 10T in cash?

A Jeep will cost much less than the curent 5 millions or whatever it costs right now.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

It is a lovely image. Rene Magritte made the drawing of a pipe and below he wrote "Ceci n'est une pipe." It translate has This is not a pipe. It appears to be a contradiction, but it was true. That was the drawing of a pipe, not a pipe itself.


Simcountry should have a subtitle placed somewhere saying This isn't the real world.

Changes should occur to enhance the functions already in place, add a little bit of challenge or to assure some sort of equilibrium. Instead, changes have been made to corrupt those in place and turn the game unplayable, effectively killing it for all of us - for those who play now and for all those who are to come.


What is an acceptable cash level?
Such a question would be best answered by "let the market decide".

If the Cash Market was easier to use and if the war machine was properly tuned, I'm pretty sure the "market" would attend to itself.

But it is clear that you have your own idea of what is ideal. The determination to force that ideal unto us is also very clear. And in the process, you have broken our hearts, our will to play, our countries and accounts. We have no reason to stay here any longer.

I believed it would have been much wiser to make some modifications to the war machine, increasing the risk for both countries and enterprises and the benefits as well. At least, in that process, money would be burnt in a way players enjoyed it and could get some gratification out of it, besides piles of GCs...

But that alternative would have been wiser for another reason, a much greater reason. We fuel our economies not to only to gain the GCs to keep our expiration dates at bay, but also to gain the money we need to wage or finance war.

If, for some reason, the amount of cash we keep in our nations is less than what we need to conquer a country, much less wage a campaign against another player, we cannot enjoy a part of the game.

If, for some reason, we the time we need to generate enough money to buy the weapons and ammo needed to conquer a country belonging to another player is one or two real months, we won't have the patience to wait to enjoy a a part of the game. In fact, that part of the game will be of extremely limited enjoyment.

You see, we have a profit to invest in war. When we are ready, we have converted enough of that profit into weapons and ammo, we burn them in war. Then we wait, until we can do the same again. And again, and again... It could be said this was the market regulating itself.


What triggered your need to intervene was... our peaceful nature. We didn't wage war, we only converted into GCs what was necessary, so we stockpiled our cash... What was the harm? What IS the harm?
Seeing has our peaceful nature is becoming an obstacle to our own monetary regulation, I can suggest some changes that will remove the aversive stimulus to war - I'm speaking of psychology here, not of Secured Mode or War protection or anything like that. But do you wish to hear them?


Ah... If my cash reserves are really bothering you all that much, you can delete them. But only, if you remove financial services and undo what you did with quality cap and supply quality. I really wouldn't mind, if what is needed to stop this absurdity is to delete all of my 8000T assets.

If you can reduce the cost of ammo and wars substantially, I think it will reduce the need for large amounts of cash. This is your main problem with regards to cash. Both are too expensive. Too much ammo is needed to war, and its way too costly.

Q

Real worlds values mean nothing to me. Numbers by themselves, without proper context, mean nothing as well.

Like I said, Simcountry isn't and cannot be the real world. And in your attempts to reach realism, you have repeatedly cost us our enjoyment. None cares about the how realistic the amount of cash reserves or prices are, for as long as they make sense.

We all feel this. We all know this to be true. Can't you see it?

Lots of words Laguna but you have no issue at all.

How can the cutting of everything by a factor of 10 change the game? cash down by a factor of 10, prices too, cash reserves too. what is your point?

Who cares about the numbers as long as the logic is the same?

You don't like other aspects of the game? fine.

You brought FB as an example of a dying planet because cash levels went to 2.500T?

nonsense!

For 5 years I get a monthly mail telling me that the worlds and the game are going down the drain.
Most times it is a player who is fed up with some change (His navy cannot destroy a continent any more).

At the same time, I get many mails each day, telling me how great it is and much more than that.
People stay here for years and they probably enjoy some of the game and they enjoy fighting with us and shouting at us...

There are always people who like some changes and don't like others and I promise you that many more are being prepared.
At the end of the day, Simcountry must continue to evolve and sometimes fix some errors made in the early days. Some of the changes will be to your liking and some not.

I just don't get this bla bla bla about some stupid amounts of cash as if we rob you of anything.

No, we let you exchange game money into gold coins that allow you a lot of privileges in the game.
This includes the privilege to exchange gold coins back into game cash if needed. This is only if your 5 or 8 T in cash will not be sufficient.

Gold coins are used for many other functions and will be used even for much more in the future. They remain a currency in the game that is independent of what happens in your countries and enterprises, and are usable and valuable in many ways.

Tom, I have no conceptual problem with converting excess cash to GC. I have done it on occasion with my CEOs after the announcement of enterprise financial services, though I have tended to set my countries to buy armaments for purposes of achieving higher game levels instead.

However, the cash market as it exists now is a pain in the neck for sellers of game cash to use.

Why not give users of the cash market the option to set their bid plus a percentage the bid will change for each day the offer is not met, like the mechanism for ordering in-game product?

I would much rather have a system to exchange GC where I can place ONE bid, set its "trade strategy," and wait for a suitable transaction, than have to manually monitor auctions to prevent someone else from outbidding me.

When will this impediment to using the cash market be addressed, Tom?

Tom, more uses for gold coins would be a great idea honestly, if it were pushed to high on the priority list. Right now, primary use of gold coins for those who don't need cash, is for them to sit and collect dust, except for extending registration, or extending war protection. The current boosters, for lack of a better word, suck in most instances. The spending boosters are ok, the corporation boosters are next to worthless. I have no experience with the rebellion one so can't comment on it.


If you can reduce the numbers by a factor of 10, why not just lop a 0 off everything and be done with it?

Laguna,

Does the amount of cash connected to any reality?
do you enjoy typing 15 zeros?

start typing then.

in simcountry, we would like to see smaller numbers and bring prices of many items to a more acceptable level.

Yes, we do get many complaints about the fact that an airplane cost close to a billion.

so an airplane should cost 50 million but cash level should be 123.5 Trillions?

what is this all about?
the number of zeros?
you feel rich typing zeros?

lets talk about how to make the enterprise game more challenging?

or how to introduce natural resources or add R&D and quality for weapons, making their capabilities depend on their quality level

or what about allowing everyone to design her own products and weapons?

some suggestions, on how it should be done will help a lot.

I am typing here for an hour or two because this discussion about zeros has gone into the absurd.

In general, I spend my time trying to improve the game.

As I said, using the Cash Market is enough of a pain for those who DON'T have 8000T to dump and who just need to occasionally convert profit to GC.

Did you ever consider how TEDIOUS it would be to offer 8000T of game cash on the Cash Market, Tom? I cringe at the thought of offering 60T, much less 8000T.

We will shortly introduce direct trading of gold coins for cash on the cash market with direct offers and direct trading.

it will solve this problem once and for all. It is high on our priority list along with some more functions, boosters and others.

look at the number of updates each week, and more coming tomorrow, we are moving very fast and will try to catch up on a lot of requests and features we have promissed before.

It was always a pain trying to get rid of 70T down to less then 20T again. So much to the point that I was constantly paying between 15 and 20T for 20 coins when if I wasn't trying to get rid of it quickly I could have bought 20 coins for around 10 to 13T. The cash market isn't exactly user friendly.


With Regards,
Dragoon

My words come from my experience and knowledge. If you can show me anyone that cames to even near to what I know, holler.

Also, I suggest you stop talking with tuco.
His radiation is a dangerous one.

Pot and kettle.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Who cares about the numbers as long as the logic is the same?<!-/Quote-!>

So, who cares to tune them down? You? Why? Is there a problem with the way things were? Is the answer... no?

Why don't we ask the players of Fearless Blue if they are happy with the minuscle amounts of cash they have. Well, I play there and I cal tell you: no. If you have been reading the forums, you would have noticed everyone is saying no.


How many times have you heard me saying Simcountry is going down the drain? Probably just the one I just said today. I am telling you that you are KILLING the game by pieces with this. You don't like the word killing, fine. Use "limiting gameplay" instead. You are setting a ceiling, you are curbing behaviour, you are limiting the game, you aren't letting us play freely.


I will not convert my cash into Gold Coins to follow a failed policy. To see the world bank loaning money is an indication of lack of money. As a responsible player, I am trying to prevent the intervention of a wild card and supplying demand.

Nobody wants to exchange 8000T.
We saw someone exchange cash into 200 GC in no time. This was several days ago.

If needed, we will add offers of 50 gold coins. this was never requested. we can do it in 1 minute.

on the other side of the trade, we always offer money on any offer of gold coins making sure you ALWAYS can get money for your coin.

I would like us to remove ourselves from this market but we must make sure there is a market.

we see that people prefer to trade between themselves and only use our offers as a last resort.

The direct trading I explained before will probably make it easier and make our offers obsolete.

For the record, my struggle is with financial services and profitability.

I don't care how much a cup of coffee costs.

You know Tom, I as many others play other online games too and you know what? Not one of them has as many people complaining as on Sim Country. Why don't you ask yourself why that is?

John R is one of the most experienced players on here, if not THE most expreienced. I learnt a lot from him when I first started and I still am. Perhaps if you don't want to listen to the rest of us complaining, you could at least listen to him. I am more than happy for him to be my representitive as i'm sure many others would be too. You have your point of view, we have ours. And as your customers, surely that we should have a say in how things are handled.

I feel sorry for Jozzi. He's the one whos going to get it in the neck the next time a chat is set up with him, but again - I can't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps you could join us in the next chat session Tom?

Anyway, I digress.

Tom, there is not a business in the world that could survive if it didn't have its customers best interests at heart or listenend to their complaints. But no matter what anyone says to you - you fail to see our point of view.

Can you imagine Sim Country without its veterans? No? Well I can - and its not too far away either the way things are going. This is all a step too far, and in my opinion - a step backwards.

Laguna,
What is this about tuco? who is tuco?
???

You do not have to exchange your cash and we will complete this operation.

Unfortunately, cutting a zero from everything is not possible or otherwise we would have done it long time ago.

Fortunately, it does not cunsume much of our time and we will continue with the things that really can improve the game.

we will have to agree to disagree.

A suggestion:

can we all log into our countries and each one of us will build 5 to 10 ammunition corporations in each country?

there are many workers free in many countries and 100-200 corporations in each world will probably reduce ammunition prices and cut the cost of war. this will be great for everyone.
and the cost in the countries will fall. even in the ones where it did not fall until now.

yes?

there are free workers because all of the workforce continually is converted into low level workers. Regardless of what we do, there is a shortage of high level workers, and an excess of low level workers. We can't set up more factories because we don't have enough high level workers.

tuco... cannot be explained with words. Lets leave it at that.

Fine, carry on... Let me not be a thorn on your side. Let me not tell you there are other ways to address the same issue. Let me not even dare to suggest something as silly as the invisible hand.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

can we all log into our countries and each one of us will build 5 to 10 ammunition corporations in each country?<!-/Quote-!>

Wanna hear what I had in mind?

Why don't you give a higher priority on auto-build for ammo and weapon corps? That way, and assuming most would be built in C3, you would be lowering the cost of war and when a war starts, you would be removing a lot of "excessive" game cash from the game, since it would all go into C3s and from there to one big black hole.

I love listening to Laguna and many others and many experienced players among them.

many of the current game features are based on players responses and suggestions.

I just fail to see why 15 zeros are better than 14?

I do agree that the economy of countries is very important but that does not depend on the number of zeros.

if Laguna means that the profit in countries is too low to allow for the pourchase of weapons, that is clearly a legitimate point.

I think that to correct it, we need to make the price of weapons and ammunition go down.

We can of course start adding products to the market out of the blue but that is unfair to the players who are producing these products.

so the way to go is to change the structure of some of these corporations to produce more with no damage to their profitability and to build more of these corporations.

High level workers are produced at the pace of 24.000 per game month.

There is no conversion into low level workers anywhere in the game.

Young people, if not educated, are starting as low level workers. this is where LLW come form.

just build the corporations.
if the number of high level workers is insufficient, build anyway.

starting the next month, there will be 24.000 low level workers converting to HLW each month.

I have not been building corporations. Many countries of mine have corporations that are all entirely upgraded. Why am I continually falling further and further into shortages of high level workers?

Oh, and yes, increase production. Certainly. Either that or decrease the usage of ammunition in training and/or attacks.

So few are the players that wage war, yet the market cannot sustain an on-going war between a few players without adding products.